So I have a 3 way MB quart component set. A pair of 6.5" drivers, 4" midbass, and 1" or whatever they are tweeters. All going into my std cab truck.

I'm going to put the 6.5's in the doors, and the bracing and mounting is not a problem. The tweeters will be on the a-pillers near the dash, either firing toward the passanger or toward the windsheild depending on sound.

Where to put the 4"... I really don't wan't custom door panels, no room on the driver floor for a kick panel... So it's either leave them out... or put them in the rear pillars. Would that screw up the imaging?

"Side-biased" listening
When you listen to tunes at home, you probably don't make a habit of planting yourself smack dab in front of your left speaker. If you did, you'd be missing out on the detail the right channel has to offer, as well as the spaciousness of a complete stereo image. Yet when you listen to music in the driver's seat of your car, and you have conventional speakers in your doors or dash, you probably get the same type of imbalanced listening experience.

There are a number of disadvantages to this "side-biased" listening. The music on your left reaches you before the music on your right. Within certain bandwidths, this may seem to alter your system's response, emphasizing some frequencies over others. The sounds on your left may also seem louder, which will distort the soundstage.

Equalizing path lengths
To get proper imaging, the path lengths between your speakers and your ears need to be as close to equal as possible. These paths should be unobstructed as well. With your left door speaker about 2-1/2" feet from your left ear and your right door speaker about five feet from your right ear, this is clearly not the case. Playing with the receiver's balance control can help the driver's listening experience, but it throws the image out of whack for the person in the passenger seat.

You can overcome this problem by installing component speakers mounted in a set of custom kick panels in your car. While this option used to cost a bundle, products like Q-Forms from Q-Logic have made the process easier and more affordable, because they come ready-made for a wide variety of cars and trucks on the road today. Enter your car in our vehicle database and check under "Kick Panel Enclosures" to see if Q-Forms are available for your car. With the separates installed in the pods by your feet, you're ensured the equal path lengths vital to good imaging, and your music's detail, dynamic balance, and natural soundstage are restored.

You can also overcome unequal path lengths by purchasing an in-dash stereo with digital time correction. Time correction allows you to compensate for speaker placement by adjusting the speed at which the audio signal reaches individual speakers. Using the speaker furthest from your ears as your reference point, you calculate the amount of time that other nearer speakers need to be delayed so that all sounds arrive at your ears at the same time.

Other mounting options
Despite the growing popularity of products like Q-Forms and angled tweeters in full-range speakers, many of us, for reasons of taste or budget, still choose to improve our imaging with a more traditional use of matched components, mounting the mid-woofers in factory locations and tweeters up high on the dash or door. It's wise to keep the mid-woofer and tweeter as close together as possible so that the two drivers will act together as a single point source.

While a conventional component speaker set-up does leave path lengths unequal, there usually is a direct line from the tweeters to your ears, and this lack of obstruction alone really steps up the level of detail and the quality of your stereo image. Many matched component sets also let you adjust the firing angle of the tweeters to further optimize imaging. (Keep this feature in mind when shopping for add-on tweeters.)
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Adjusting for rear fill
Once you have your front speakers set up the way you want them, you'll want to make sure that your rear speakers are doing their part to create an ideal soundstage. While personal taste plays a role here, most experts agree that you should adjust the volume level for rear speakers so that you're barely conscious of their presence.

While your front speakers should give you the best midrange and high frequencies possible, your rear speakers can be conventional coaxials or low frequency drivers. Their purpose is to add ambience and depth to your forward soundstage and if they reveal too much high frequency information, they'll "pull" the stereo image to the rear of your vehicle, away from where you want it.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by clarkstoncracker

Actually, the new rule of thumb is you should make your tires bulge slightly more then skooterbuilt when he's wearing his tight ladies pants

So this is what we did in a standard cab ranger... tweeters and mids high in the door, nothing fancy but it was an easy place to put them and kept them close. The woffer was mounted in the bottom of the door in the original factory piece.

If you look at a lot of high end oem setups it will be done tweeters hi in door or in the pillar woofers in back mids in bottom of door... just like the infinity system in my XJ...

To bad that confrence room isnt set up yet, we could come down again and i could show you the setup

[IMG]With the separates installed in the pods by your feet, you're ensured the equal path lengths vital to good imaging, and your music's detail, dynamic balance, and natural soundstage are restored.[/IMG]

Ummm....it's still a longer distance from the right kick panel to my head than it is from the left kick panel to my head. WTF kinda car are these guys working in? I wish I had a "blowing smoke out their ass" emoticon.

[IMG]With the separates installed in the pods by your feet, you're ensured the equal path lengths vital to good imaging, and your music's detail, dynamic balance, and natural soundstage are restored.[/IMG]

Ummm....it's still a longer distance from the right kick panel to my head than it is from the left kick panel to my head. WTF kinda car are these guys working in? I wish I had a "blowing smoke out their ass" emoticon.